[UPDATE] At the Edge of the Postmodern? American Poetry in the 1950s

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The Charles Olson Society / ALA May 2014, Washington DC
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Charles Olson uses the contested term "postmodern" in a letter to Robert Creeley in August 1951, and the 1950s may be taken as a pivotal or liminal decade in American poetics. Many of the great Modernists were still at work, but the generation of Lowell and Bishop had arrived, and so had the poets of Don Allen's "New American Poetry," along with other voices. We are interested in papers that explore any aspect of American poetry in the 1950s--literary history, literary criticism, cultural criticism. Papers may focus on individual poets or poems, or may consider the poetry of that decade more broadly. Please send abstracts of no more than 200 words to grieveca@lvc.edu by Friday, Dec 20, 2013.